


Evoke

by lupinity87



Category: This is Spinal Tap (1984)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-07
Updated: 2012-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-20 14:18:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17623991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lupinity87/pseuds/lupinity87
Summary: Despite spending the first two decades of his life in this little flat, it just doesn’t register in David's memory as being the same place.





	Evoke

**Author's Note:**

> _“Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.”_ \- Helen Keller

He looks around the old flat, surprised that the entire block wasn't knocked down and redeveloped decades ago. The old brown and orange tiles are gone from the small kitchen, replaced by crisp white plaster, and glossy black marble gleams at him where chipped Formica worktops sat sixty-odd years ago. Wordlessly, he walks out and steps into the lounge. The magazine reporter and photographer traipse after him.

"Anything familiar, David?"

He glances at the neutral colours on the walls and floor, a study in magnolia and beige, and shakes his head. "Not really." The walls were covered in paisley prints when he was last here, and he has no recollection of the soft carpet squashing under his shoes when he was young. Was the floor wooden, perhaps? Tiled? Despite spending the first two decades of his life in this little flat, it just doesn't register in his memory as being the same place. He feels almost disappointed, and he turns to the reporter with a shrug.

"Nothing?" the reporter asks irritably. "It ain't going to read well, is it? The famous David St. Hubbins' childhood home comes up for sale, but he doesn't remember it?"

"I remember it," David says defensively, "but not like this. It feels different. I swear this room was smaller, and the kitchen was tiny, just a little galley kitchen."

The reporter frowns, impatient. "Maybe someone knocked a wall through. We have got the right place, ain't we?"

David nods. "Yeah. Number 45, this is it. It's just... different." He walks over to the wide window and looks down upon the concrete alleyways of Squatney below. "Some of the buildings are the same. That one there," he points at a grey tower block off to the right, "that was there. But all the taller ones must be new." He thought there had been a narrow balcony outside the window. He seems to remember his mum hanging the washing out on a line outside, but maybe it hung from the window frame. He's not sure now.

An electric click and whirr sounds behind him as the photographer captures his outline, silhouetted against the grey of London outside, and he turns around. He shrugs and holds his palms up, empty. "I can't tell you anymore," he says, almost apologetically.

"What about your bedroom? The room you grew up in must bring back something, right?"

David isn't convinced that it will, but he steps out into the hallway anyway. He doesn't quite remember the set of three white doors he faces, but he supposes they must have been there before. "This one, I think," he says with some uncertainty, and opens the door on the far right.

The gleaming white tiles of a modern bathroom surprise him, and he looks back at the reporter with an awkward smile. "Maybe not." He closes the door and tries the next one.

A large room opens out in front of him, so he steps inside and looks around. It looks like a bedroom, although there's no furniture. The last occupants carried the same colour scheme in from the lounge. It looks bland.

"Blimey, it's big," the reporter says as he follows David, but David shakes his head.

"This wasn't it," he says. "Mum and Dad's bedroom was nearly this big, but it was the other side of the flat." He steps past the reporter back into the hallway, and looks at the doors. It takes him a few seconds to realise what's wrong.

"There's only two bedrooms," he finally announces. He opens the final door to find another magnolia room, smaller than the previous one but much bigger than his bedroom was. He shuts the door without bothering to step in. "They've knocked two rooms together and moved the bathroom, I think. There used to be three bedrooms – Mum and Dad, me and my brother, and my sister had the smallest one to herself. Well, that was stupid," he says, frowning. "They've lost a room."

"So... your old bedroom isn't here?" the reporter asks.

"Nah. I don't think it's been here for a long time."

The reporter sighs dramatically. "Bloody waste of time, this. Joe, you get the snaps you want. I'll be in the car – I've got bigger stories than this to follow."

David stands in the lounge awkwardly while the photographer flits around taking a few more shots. He jumps when the front door swings shut with a heavy _thud_ – even that sounds different to the rickety clatter of the old front door.

"I'll drop the keys off at the estate agent, then?"

"If you could," the photographer says flatly, before going back into the kitchen.

 _No need to be so grumpy with me_ , David thinks. _You asked me to come and say how it felt to be back. Not my fault they rebuilt the bloody place_. He looks out of the window again, and is almost relieved when he hears the photographer pack up and leave.

He feels let down, in a way. When the magazine had first contacted him, saying the flat he grew up in was up for sale and inviting him to have a look, he'd expected all the memories to come flooding back, and to relive a bit of his youth as though it only happened last week. Instead, it feels like his childhood is more distant than ever.

He takes one final look out of the window and leaves the flat, not sparing another glance at the unfamiliar bedrooms. Even the communal hallway outside the flat is different – it looks almost the same, but cleaner, somehow. The rows of numbered doors into the other flats have all had a new coat of paint sometime recently, and there's a clean smell in the air – Dettol, maybe. He locks the door to number 45, and pockets the keys.

His eyes are drawn to number 47 next door, and he wonders what it's like inside – wonders if Nigel would remember his own childhood home if he had a look. The corridor's empty except for him, so he presses an ear against the door. There's a television on – the _Countdown_ theme tune is playing from inside the flat. He doesn't want the disappointment of knowing that Nigel's old home – the flat David spent nearly as much time in as he did his own – has changed beyond all recognition as well, so he walks away.

But when he reaches the concrete staircase, instead of going downstairs, he goes up – floor after floor after floor, his shoes tapping against the smooth steps and sending echoes behind him. There's something in his head telling him to stop, to turn around, that he doesn't want to find out that even more old memories have been replaced by something new and unfamiliar, but his feet keep carrying him upwards. He finally reaches the top floor, a little more out of breath than he would have been fifty years ago, and he pushes the heavy fire door open.

The instant the cold air outside hits his nose, he's eight years old again. He steps outside onto the roof terrace and even though there are little changes – the walls have been painted dark blue so long ago the paint is already peeling, and there's a more substantial steel rail mounted onto the low brick wall that runs along the edge of the roof – David's so caught up in the past that those changes don't matter.

The air is lighter somehow, up here above Squatney, and always has been. It still smells of the city below, but it's less heavy and oppressive. There's a rich, evocative tang of creosote which has been lingering for half a century or more, although David and Nigel never found the source before and probably wouldn't now. The pollution of the traffic is more dispersed this high, and even though the block of flats isn't the tallest tower in this end of London anymore, it doesn't matter. _This, here and now_ , David thinks as he draws a deep breath of familiar air into his lungs, _is where it all began_.

He smiles as he walks further onto the roof terrace, and sits down against the low wall at the edge. He used to sit in the exact same spot a lifetime ago. David breathes in the taste of concrete dust and creosote and remembers it as clearly as yesterday – Nigel sitting beside him, to his left, clutching his enormous acoustic guitar in his lap. He could only have been eight or nine. They used to come up here whenever they could, most evenings after school. He even remembers the exact shade of green of Nigel's school blazer, a deep emerald. It clashed with the navy blue piping around the edge of David's black blazer, and still clashes in his mind today.

Even when they were older, they still went up to the roof together to practise or write songs, or just hang out. They wrote _All The Way Home_ up here, David remembers, and smiles at the memory. It must have been summer, because he remembers a warm evening breeze ruffling Nigel's hair as they sat in jeans and t-shirts, and the rough bricks of the wall were hot against the back of his arms after baking in the sun all day. There was a meteor shower later that night, and they had stayed up on the roof until the early hours of the morning, guitars pushed aside while they lay on their backs to watch the sky for shooting stars. 

"There's one," he remembers saying with a wide smile, proud at having spotted it. It must have been the fifth or sixth shooting star he'd seen that night, but each one had made him just as excited as the first. Nigel hadn't replied, and David had glanced at him to find him sleeping, his mouth slightly open as he breathed softly.

"Nigel?" he'd whispered. "Aren't you cold now?"

Nigel didn't opened his eyes, but quietly said "a bit," and rolled over to press against David's side. "You're warm," he'd mumbled into David's shoulder, and started snoring. He still remembers the coolness of Nigel's t-shirt against his arm, and he thinks that if he lifted a hand to check, he'd still find a silky head of hair resting against him.

David realises his eyes are closed. He reluctantly opens them and the summer night of his youth is gone, replaced by a dreary February afternoon in 2012. A brief pang of yearning for days gone by grips him, and he wants to return.

He sits up straighter and fumbles in his coat pocket, crossing his legs at the ankles in front of him. His hand closes around his mobile and he pulls it out, and quickly finds the number he's after.

"Hey, Nigel," he says into the handset, smiling. "Yeah, it's been a few years! Do I ever need a reason to phone you?"

He leans back and closes his eyes. "You'll never guess where I am right now."


End file.
